Please join us in urgently praying for Egypt and its Christian community following two attacks on Coptic churches on Palm Sunday yesterday.

At least 27 people were killed and many more wounded in an explosion inside a church in the Nile Delta city of Tanta. A further 16 people were killed outside a church in Alexandria by a suicide bomber, including police officers who stopped the bomber from entering the church. ISIS have claimed responsibility for the bombings.

Both churches were packed full of worshippers for Palm Sunday. These attacks were the latest in a worrying rise in violence against the Coptic Christians of Egypt, including a bombing at the Coptic Cathedral in December, which was the deadliest attack on Egypt's Christian minority for many years.

The Prince of Peace

The story of Palm Sunday is one of Jesus as the Prince of Peace, riding peacefully into Jerusalem despite his full knowledge of the suffering He is about to face. As you pray for Egypt, please pray that Jesus the Prince of Peace would reign over the whole of Egypt and every Egyptian, to bring unity, healing and mercy in the face of suffering.

Here are some more ways Egyptian Christians have asked us to pray, via Middle East Concern:

For God's comfort for those who lost loved ones and for full recovery of the injured

For comfort and encouragement for the wider Christian community and for God's protection over his church in Egypt and over other targets of these kinds of attacks

That the perpetrators of these violent attacks and the instigators behind them will be found and brought to justice

Thank you so much for your prayers for this situation, and your ongoing intercession for the Middle East and its people.